BBVA opens API to developers for global hackathon

BBVA is to share a EUR60,000 pot with developers who can augment bank API data from card transactions in Mexico with external resources to create innovative new financial applications.

The MX InnovaChallenge hackathon will present developers with anonymised data from commercial card transactions in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, from November through April 2014.

Says the bank: "InnovaChallenge MX is a competition aimed specifically at finding more creative treatments that can be done with the huge volume of data held by BBVA Bancomer, and above all, how they can be combined with other sources of external information."

The event is the second in a series of global development contests staged by the Spanish bank under the InnovaChallenge brand. The inaugural edition last year attracted more than 140 applications from 19 countries for a big data hackathon.

For this year's prize, the development teams will have a choice of business or consumer applications, with the cash split between the top three prototypes in each category.

The API data sets will be made publicly available on 20 October, with final treatments submitted by close of play on 1 December.

Last month, BBVA announced its intention to invest $1.2 billion on technology projects in South America over the next two years as it looks to grow the number of customers using digital and mobile channels to access the bank.